Do You Have These 3 Sneaky Food Addictions?

We Are What We Eat

whatyoueatNow I know that we are all familiar with this little saying, but I always took it for granted and never really thought about it.  It is quite profound to speak of the fact that your body has a living ecosystem inside of it.  You put food into your mouth which is taken through a process involving billions of living organisms who use enzymes and other chemicals to break the food down into it’s components.  These guys then use the good raw materials to build new cells/perform maintenance on the body, pass the unneeded waste down the line, and store the rest as fat for a rainy day.

Its all quite magical if you ask my opinion, but what happens when you don’t give your body enough the actual raw materials it needs to function optimally and too much of the materials it doesn’t need?  Your body then has to rob enzymes and materials from otherwise healthy cells to build new “malnourished” cells.  You then get whole warehouses full of shit (literally) that you don’t need.  In other slumwords, you fall into a state of disease.  Dis-ease, that means you are not at ease, and under stress.  Under stress, things don’t run optimally.  If your body were a city, there would be garbage in the streets, bad plumbing, and maybe even talk of rebellion (cancer).

When I started learning more and more about the topic of health from an adult perspective, my conscience no longer allowed me to ignore it.  I had these three major food addictions that were making me unhealthy and gain weight in an unhealthy way.

People who know me probably remember me as being a pretty scrawny guy.  I wasn’t happy usually being one of the smallest guys in the crew, so I welcomed the freshman 15 going away to college.  But the weight kept slowly creeping up, and never down.  By the time I was 28, I was pushing 180 pounds, which caught the eye of my wife.  I never considered myself overweight, but for the first time I couldn’t deny that I was flirting with it. Without action I would end up going over that slippery slope. I honestly didn’t know I had almost 50 extra pounds on me to lose!

I had to take action. I made the choice and I educated myself in a way that our schools and our parents done.  I did my own homework.  I went to battle with these three addictions that were leading me down the road to cancer and obesity.  I look at too many people I love that are losing this battle not even knowing there is one and how to stop it.  This war on health has decimated my family, I can tell you that much.  That’s why I need to pass this knowledge on.

Knowing is half the battle.

-G.I. Joe

3 Foods That Are Slowly Killing Us

#1 -Sugary Drinks

cautionfoodThat’s right, I’m talking about soda, pop, fizz, or whatever new slang you kids are using it these days.  Better toss in energy drinks, most juices the kids drink, and sports drinks on the to-avoid list.

The sugar content in sodas is shocking.  There was a whole US study showing how daily consumption of soda actually increased the risk for type 2 diabetes by 25%.  Soda is made to addict you so you keep guzzling it all day long.  Not to mention when we eat sugary acidic things our body has to rob the nutrients from our healthy cells to help digest it causing us to feel weak and tired.  But hey, you can just grab another Coke for that little pick-me-up.

Here’s a scary fact that you’ve probably nevercancer heard.  When you drink soda pop out of plastic (cups or bottles) the chemicals and acids in the soda pop break down and mix with the chemicals in the plastic which (mostly petroleum) and the resultant chemical changes male hormones into female hormones after it hits your blood stream.  This is causing breast cancer in males AND females.

This is the only country in the world that more men die of breast cancer than women, but we don’t talk about that.  This is because men drink more soda pop than women.

-Dick Gregory

What should you drink instead if you want a sweet tasting drink?

Do fresh juices that are at most grocery stores.  It’s more expensive, but well worth the price when you know the alternatives too well (especially when they’ve been sitting on the shelf in a plastic bottle with BPA).  Make your own juices.  I will have a high quality juicer for the rest of my life. Eat juicingfresh fruit to get your sweets.  Even some raw cane sugar, maple syrup, honey.  Stay with things that actually come out of nature.

As another “word to the wise,” anything that says low-fat, sugar free, or diet, it really means it has added more artificial replacements so they can legally say it on the label. These additives are actually much worse for you than what they are trying to trick you into thinking you are replacing. Look up ASPARTAME POISONING and you’ll never drink DIET (so ironic) again.

#2 – Vegetable Oil & Fried Foods

Vegetable oil is very sneaky because it’s not really made from vegetables. There is a whole industrial process behind the production of vegetable oil. Real terrible, go look it up. Vegetable oil is full of trans fats.  These trans fats increase the bad cholesterol (LDL) andvessles reduce the good cholesterol (HDL).  Corn oil, canola oil, sunflower oil; these are all full of high amounts of poly unsaturated fats while our body consists of about 97% saturated fats and mono-unsaturated fats.  This increases your triglycerides which are the blood fats that clog up veins and arteries making it harder for blood to circulate around the body and raising blood pressure.  Also produce free radicals that cause cancer down the line.

My favorite healthy replacement is coconut oil.

cocoilCoconut oil is full of the mono-unsaturated fats our body needs and uses. As a bonus, 50% of the fats contain lauric acid which is an immune booster and natural anti-viral. We literally use coconut oil for butter, to cook with, to pop popcorn with, to eat, and even as a lotion. For other healthier cooking alternatives to vegetable oil use my runner-up favorite extra virgin olive oil or flaxseed oil.

Another big reason to avoid vegetable oil is that it’s mostly used for frying up something salty and fattening as it is. Fresh live food is full of the enzymes that we need to break down and digest it.  Not just fried food, but when you heat ANY food very much above 104EnzymeRich degrees F the enzymes become denatured. Is it a coincidence that a fever over 104 becomes deadly? Please don’t take my word for any of this, look it up. Fried food is all but devoid of enzymes, so we get very little nutrition from it.  It mostly passes right through us without being digested and utilized by the body. Any of it that does get broken down is at the expense of the enzymes robbed from healthy cells. Eating fresh foods, at close to body temperature, in their most natural state is what works optimally for digestion and integration.  It’s what our bodies evolved side by side with.

#3 – Processed Meats

slopburgerI know, I know. Nobody wants to hear ANYTHING about cutting back on the meat intake.  I’ll admit that this is my biggest struggle with taking my healthy eating to the next level.  I crave meat.  I love a big juicy steak or a nice pork tenderloin… Sorry for the Homer Simpson moment, but you get the picture.  We like meat, but we need a reality check about how good it is for us (especially the factory processed varieties). The World Health Organization released a study saying that processed meats cause cancer in the body. Think about it, do your own homework. Watch a couple of documentaries like Food Inc. and Forks Over Knives which are real life horror flicks themselves.  We need to get over our meat addiction.

Nobody likes to talk about hormones and antibiotics especially in chicken and beef.  An egg hatches today, and in 29 days you’re ready to eat it. Colonel Sanders can’t say Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore only the acronym KFC. They grow chickens with nopoultry beaks, no feet, and no feathers. Of course the industry put out their own contradictory press releases, but you’ll find out the truth when you do your own homework. If you walked through there you would think you died and went to a horrible place. On top of it, when you inject hormones in to the chicken to make it grow, it creates cancer all throughout the chicken.

Combine some fried chicken with some french fries and an XL Diet Coke and you’ve got the recipe to send you right into the loving arms of our pharmaceutical industrial complex.

On a deeper level, it’s more about the energy of that animal getting transferred to your DNA when you eat it.  Animals raised in fear and brutalized store that fear in their DNA.  DNA is like the flight recorder of kosheryour species.  When you intake that into your body, your body reads the data on that disk and has a reaction.  From the point of view of your body, it’s like watching a horror movie for your cells.  That’s why our Jewish people are only supposed to eat Kosher meat.  They are not to cause pain to any animal, and when they kill an animal to eat it unconsciousness must be instantaneous.  They know that when an animal dies in a state of terror, that fear keeps on resonating through every living cell in it’s body even past it’s death.  WE HAVE HAD THIS ENERGETIC KNOWLEDGE BEFORE.

5 Vegan Foods with More Protein than Beef

I have been an on-and-off vegetarian forwheresthebeef the past couple years and I’m really getting to where I know I need to finally rip the band-aid off. I get the “why are you a vegetarian, where are you going to get your protein?” I didn’t know what to say at first so I had to do a couple google searches.  Ask and you shall receive.

I see that beef usually runs about 7g / oz of protein.  These plant based foods have more protein than beef both PER OUNCE and PER CALORIE:

#1 – Spirulina

Spirulina1 teaspoon gives you 4 grams of protein.  Spirulina is also packed full of magnesium to help build muscle and repair the body.  Super green powder.

#2 – Hemp Seeds

2 tablespoons of hemp seeds will get you 10 grams of protein.  Hemp seeds give you a pretty complete protein along with some Omega 3s.  They are a superfood by any definition.

#3 – Spinach

popeyePopeye had the right idea when he picked his favorite dark leafy greens. 1 cup of spinach is 5 grams of protein.  A few cups of spinach salad will give you a whole day’s protein.

#4 – Broccoli

brocA mere 30 calories of broccoli has 4.5 grams of protein.  Broccoli is a fractal food as well.  Look up “fractal foods” if you want an interesting lesson.

#5 Almonds and Almond Butter

almondsYou can eat a handful of almonds (about 10 ounces) and chew up a whole 7 grams of protein.  Even Peanut butter will give you 8 grams of protein in two tablespoons.  Fresh, unsalted nuts are my new #1 Snack.  Can’t get enough!

Protein is not a magical substance that is only contained in animal meat. Where do you think the rest of the world that isn’t carnivorous gets their protein building blocks for their bodies to regenerate?  From plant based sources of course.  Vegetarians don’tbamboo have to be weak.  A gorilla eats bamboo all day and he would have no problem ripping your arm off.

I hope you learned a little something today.  I want to keep providing you with real value.  With real knowledge that I wasn’t taught in school but found out by doing my own homework.  Sometimes you need to leave the beaten path when you really want the truth, and not everyone is willing to do that.

Remember, evolving a little every day, in every little way.

Stepping onto a brand new path is difficult, but not as difficult as remaining in a situation…

-Maya Angelou

I Was Poisoning My Own Little Girls – Top 5 Sunscreen Ingredients to Run From

The Sun has returned with Spring!

springsunMy family and I moved down to Southern Texas in 2014.  Prior to that we had been living in Chicago, so we couldn’t get enough of the sun and the year round pool access.  Being in the sun much more than we were previously accustomed to had us using way more sunscreen than before. Having to apply sunblock on my two young daughters’ bodies almost every day (sometimes multiple times per day) really caused me to start paying attention to the ingredients in this stuff.

A friend of mine who frequents the pool suggested I take a close look at the bottles of sunscreen I had in our pool bag and google some of the ingredients.  Since she happens to be a doctor, and because of my curious nature, I did a little homework.  Much to my chagrin, my wife and I had been POISONING OUR GIRLS and ourselves for years.

solarflareThe two brands I had in my bag at the time, along with about every major name brand, and even the cheap-o store brands contain toxic chemicals that actually accelerate damage to the body and skin they are supposed to protect.  Be on the lookout for these 5 dangerous chemicals on your sunscreen and put it back on the shelf if you haven’t bought it yet!!!

Don’t take my word for it.  Do your own homework on these.

Top 5 Sunscreen Ingredients to Run From

#1 – Oxybenzone

greenpoisonLinked to lowering the birthrate in babies whose mother’s had high exposure during pregnancy.  Some also say it my be linked to higher rates of melanoma, the very cancer we are trying to protect ourselves from.  Also linked to hormone disruption, the development of allergies in the body, and cell damage.  Releases free radicals.

#2 – Avobenzone

toxicfishQuickly breaks down under UV exposure and is one of the biggest free radical generators.  Free radicals are high energy particles that damage cells and DNA, cause cancer, and speed up the aging process.

#3 – Vitamin A/Retinyl Polymatate

poisonAlthough vitamin A is a necessary nutrient for health, it degrades under UV exposure and releases the same free radicals causing genetic mutations and increasing cancer risk. When used by pregnant women, it has been linked to fetal brain swelling, organ toxicity, and developmental toxicity.

#4 – Parabens

Bret MichaelsA common preservative in many beauty products shown to cause estrogen disruption and immunotoxicity.  Also associated with infertility, neurotoxicity, abnormal testicular development, allergies, benign tumors of the uterus and digestive tract, asthma, breast cancer, and even contribute to obesity.

#5 – Fragrance

Poison_PerfumeSunblocks use a plethora of chemical fragrances to make their smell more tolerable to the user including phthalates.  Usually called “artificial fragrance” which is the umbrella term for this group of chemicals.  Known to cause neurotoxicity and immune system toxicity. Linked to cancer, allergies, birth defects, and even nervous system disorders.

These five are just a few that are very common, but they are just the tip of the ice burg.  Here are a few more chemicals to add to your “homework” list: octocrylene, homosalate, MBC, BHT, dimethicone, alumina.  This sh*t is actually loaded into many of your and your kids’ lotions, makeup, shampoo, and anything else applied to your body.

now what

Healthier, Safer, Organic Alternatives

It turns out that there are plenty of organic mineral sunscreens on the market for you to buy instead of the usual chemical spread, only you’re most likely not going to find it on sale at the local grocery store.  If it’s “ON SALE” on the end-cap, chances are youkidmagnifying want to steer clear.  I don’t know about you but I buy just about everything but food online. What you want to be looking for instead is one with the main ingredient ZINC OXIDE or even Titanium Dioxide.  These sit on the skin differently and don’t come with the host of alleged side effects.  Even your buddy Dr. Oz recommends making the switch so please don’t take my word as an expert authority.  Do your own homework.

My wife any my favorite sunscreen that we have been exclusively using for the past year and a half is made by a company called Arbonne.  It spreads the best so the bottle goes much farther and lasts longer than bigger bottles of other brands.  It also doesn’t leave the white tint all over your body like a lot of the others do.  Here are links to the adult and kid versions below:
LiqSunAdultLiqSunKid

 

Here are a few more from Amazon that we have tried.  They might be a little cheaper than the Arbonne one’s but they leave you with that notorious white film that mineral sunscreens are notorious for and we found ourselves going through more bottles faster costing more money in the long run.  Here are a couple links to those as well.  Make your own choice on what to buy.

Thanks for taking the time to read my latest update.  I’m going to do my best to keep suggesting little tweaks you can make to your lifestyle and shopping habits that will nudge you in that direction of health and happiness that we all want.  My goal is to provide you with some value and some ways to educate yourself that will only add to your quality of life.

Remember our mission:

Evolving Every Day in Every Way

-TJ